So, you don’t think you are a socialist? You can’t possibly vote for Labour because Jeremy Corbyn is a socialist and you aren’t.
You may be astonished to find out you that you are more of a socialist than you thought.
One of the most economically lucrative periods of our history was under a socialist Labour government when many or our public services and industry such as coal mining and steel manufacturing were taken into public ownership.
Despite being a period of economic downturn after the second world war, houses were built many of them council houses, which boosted the income of local councils and provided habitable and safe living standards for everyone.
There is a fine balance between socialism and capitalism and the overpowered socialist reforms made for a decline in the 70’s which saw the Conservatives regain power and Thatcherism installed.
We’ve seen many of our country’s greatest socialist accomplishments being degraded over the last 30 years, whilst capitalism has grown more greedily by the minute.
Capitalism is only an economic system, it is cold and mechanical and offers no protection or support to the consumers of this profitable financial machine. In short, only some kind of socialism can protect us from the greed of capitalism and corporations, either by regulating the organisations that through blind greed would do us harm or by giving people a safety net for times when they find themselves in desperate need of help.
Socialism is not troublesome. It is simply having empathy and caring for others.
Socialism is given a bad name, it’s thrown around by the mainstream media as a threat to our society and affiliated with communism. Socialism is not communism. They are two separate entities, being a socialist, won’t make you a communist.
The Oxford dictionary defines socialism as ‘A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.’ (OOD, 2017)
We have enjoyed the benefits of socialism without realising that it is indeed socialism that gives us those benefits.
The NHS, which begun after the second world war in 1948 under a labour government is truly a socialist institution. The people pay for it, it belongs to all of us and protects us in times of need.
The Education Act (1944) supplying free state school education to children from the age of 4 to 18.
The welfare state, this protects everyone and was set up to supply a modest lifestyle to anyone that became unemployed or were unable to work due to sickness or disabilities etc. It helps to support people in times of great hardship. This also includes a state pension, which is the people’s reward for paying into national insurance and in recognition that you can’t work until you drop.
These socialist policies are perhaps the most civilised aspect of our society in the United Kingdom and they are all under threat.
We are told by mainstream media that the welfare system is being strained to breaking point, that people take advantage of it and that it provides too good a lifestyle. People are genuinely suffering and this can be seen by the 746,016 adults and 436,938 children which had to make use of foodbanks between April 2016-April 2017 (Truselltrust.org, 2017).
There are people that can quite happily survive on unemployment benefit, but let’s get this straight they are only surviving and most people wouldn’t want their lifestyle.
Since 1979 we have lived under a right-wing or centre-right wing government and a change is due, right now! The balancing scales are once again too far in favour of the capitalist movement and we are losing the features of our society that makes Britain great.
It’s time for a socialist movement to protect the very things that make us a forward thinking civilised country and not a country returning to Victorian times.
When voting, vote for the policies you believe in and not the personalities. You don’t vote for the person, you vote for the party.
Whether you like or dislike Jeremy Corbyn or Teresa May or Tim Farron, the only issues that matter are the policies they offer.
